Tag: shopping

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why It’s Good To Shop With Your Other Half!

She sees it as the ultimate cardio work out. He sees it as the ultimate test of endurance. It could mean only one thing… couples shopping!

Take a look around any town centre in the UK and you’ll see a familiar sight – women, the hunters of fabulous clothes; men, the carriers of bags and the heroes that help their ladies shoulder barge through the hoards of bargain hunters.

But while women are the Queens of the high street, it’s men who reign supreme on the internet. In this Infographic ‘Men Vs Woman – Battle of Spending Habits’, from financial solutions company Baines & Ernst, men actually come out on top as the biggest spenders, with alcohol, vehicles and gambling appearing in their top 5 purchases.

Men spend on average a total of £3,495 online every year and 15% more than women on their credit cards, making them the surprise cash flashers.

Although guys prefer the comfort of shopping from their armchair, there are certain benefits to being a co-pilot on a shopping trip…

Here are 7 reasons why it’s good to go shopping with your other half…

1. You earn excellent boyfriend brownie points! This is the only reason you really need to go shopping. Want a night out with your mates? Don’t want to be relegated to the other room to watch Match of the Day? Want an all night Xbox marathon with the boys? Well, you earned it buddy!

2. It’ll make your lady happy. A shopping wing-man is always good. And if you’re there to hang out with, tell her she looks good and treat her to lunch, your lady will be happy. And by doing all of this you’ll get… excellent boyfriend brownie points! *see point above for boyfriend rewards.

3. Pretty good way to while away the hours. If you’ve got nothing planned, then a trip to the shops can be a good excuse to check out the things you want to see and treat yourself to a few well deserved treats. Many big shopping centres also double up as entertainment complexes now, so if you get bored of wandering around the shops, you could go and have a really nice meal in one of the restaurants or catch a film.

4. Coming up to a special occasion? Use the time to plant seeds! Whether you’ve got an anniversary, birthday or Christmas coming up, you can use this time to look for what you want and plant some seeds. And it’ll give you the chance to check out what she’d like too.

5. You get regular sitting intervals. They’re in the changing room – you get to sit. Shops seem to have all designed dressing rooms with the gent in mind – creating little social areas for abandoned boyfriends so that you don’t get funny looks for loitering around outside changing rooms.

6. You get the gift of time. When you’ve been relegated to the boyfriend bench in the changing rooms, you can use this time to catch up on your phone admin. So you can message your mates, answer emails, check out Facebook, read the news and anything else you like without being asked “Who are you messaging?”

7. Its mutual ground. Okay, it might not be your most favourite activity, but it’s a good mutual ground for you to spend some time together and have a bit of fun. Grab a coffee, people watch and do some browsing. It could be worse!

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January 28, 2013
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why You Should Shop Online

There was tension in the office when Clive accused Deborah of stealing his voucher code

1. Shopping naked. Let’s face it, we all love a bit of nudity, but unfortunately public displays of it tend to be frowned upon. As such, going down to the local shopping centre in the buff may result in you going home in a police car. However, in the comfort of your own home, you can shop naked, cross dress or even wear your underpants on your head.

2. Cashback. A shopper’s dream is to be paid to shop so who would have thought you would be given a discount simply for shopping; well this is the case with the internet. There are various sites that track purchases and return a percentage of the sale to your wallet. If you’re feeling generous you can even use this to donate through sites like easyfundraising.org.uk.

3. Shopping for a partner. The internet really has opened our eyes to what people will pay for. Nowadays, you can pay for almost anything online from the meaning of life to a 10-year old Virgin Mary grilled cheese (real ebay sales). In terms of more normal behaviour, people have also turned to the internet to solve their relationship problems and now through sites like Lovestruck.com you can even pay for the chance to find love.

4. Keeping your sanity. Once you do find that soul mate through an online dating service, it’s important to do as much as you can to avoid going shopping with them. Connected by an invisible wire, many men have lost their marbles whilst accompanying their partners on shopping trips, which is another reason for why you should shop online.

5. No walking. Movement is overrated. Going shopping in actual shops requires so much walking that there have been reported cases of legs literally turning to jelly. To avoid this unlikely scenario it’s best to play it safe and shop online.

6. No carrying. Keeping on the same topic of protecting your body, physical shopping often requires a lot of bag-carrying. For those looking to enter bodybuilding contests, this form of shopping is ideal but for the rest of us, the online method is more suitable. Shopping is supposed to be therapeutic and relaxing, if we all wanted to work out, we’d be better off going to the gym.

7. The internet is our master. You might not actually know this but the internet has slowly become our master and as such, we must obey it. If it asks us to browse on a daily basis, we must! If it asks us to post status updates every 5 seconds, we must! And if it asks us to shop online, who are we to disagree with the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving internet.

October 17, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Should Travel In A Tuk-Tuk In Thailand

Below are seven reasons why anyone planning a trip to Thailand should travel in a tuk-tuk during their time in the country:

1. Style. Nothing says style quite like a tuk-tuk does. For starters, 3-wheelers are just plain cool. Then there is the vehicle exterior – the paint jobs are quite exquisite and the alloys are comparable to something out of a 50 Cent music video. Add to this the tasteful and sophisticated interior and it’s easy to see why tuk-tuks are regarded as such a stylish means of travel.

2. Comfort. If you’re looking to travel in total comfort, a tuk-tuk is undoubtedly the vehicle for you. Spacious, quiet and air conditioned, you can sit back, relax and enjoy your journey in peace no matter how hectic the outside world may be.

3. Stand Out From The Crowd. Should you choose to travel in a tuk-tuk, you can be assured that you will be part of an exclusive group. With tuk-tuks being extremely rare in Thailand, only a select few are fortunate enough to experience the great thrill of travelling in these fine vehicles.

4. There’s Room For Your Shopping. A bit of a shopaholic? No problem at all. These spacious vehicles are perfect for carrying large groups of people, shopping bags or livestock as is often the case.

5. Safety. Tuk-tuks are very rarely involved in collisions thanks to their drivers care and attention whilst on the road. However, should you be unfortunate enough to be involved in some kind of accident, you can rest assured that these vehicles are extremely sturdy with a safety rating that is comparable to that of a tank.

6. Perfect For All Road Surfaces. No matter what the road surface is like, you can be certain that a tuk-tuk will plough on through even the worst road conditions. Thanks to its powerful engine, huge tyres and advanced 3-wheel drive technology, there is no road too challenging for these magnificent machines.

7. Safe From Thai New Year Traditions. Songkran is a festival in Thailand which celebrates the Thai New Year between the 13th-15th April. Should you be in the country during this time, you’ll quickly notice that one of the traditions during this festival is to throw water over each other – a symbol of washing all of the bad away. Normally you’d be in very real danger of getting soaked but you’ve little to fear when travelling in a tuk-tuk.

June 9, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Try Hypnotherapy

‘Celebrity Hypnotists’ and their peddling of hypnosis as a form of entertainment have a lot to answer for. The lack of trust in hypnotherapy as a bona-fide method to treat conditions from depression to weight loss or mothers in child-birth to bed-wetting in those resulting children, is unnecessarily wide-spread and much of this could be put down to too many slap-stick programs and internet clips of people flapping like a birdy, declaring their love for a doggy or regressing to babyhood, sucking on a dummy, dribbling – and worse. Hypnotherapy, founded in the ‘mesmerism’ of the 1800’s and now used as a method for curing conditions that stem from emotional and psychological issues, has also influenced the development of the widely recognised cognitive behavioural therapy, and which employs clinical hypnosis.

Among the many reasons to think about hypnotherapy in a positive less ‘look into my eyes, not around the eyes’way;

1. Spiders Are Cool. They eat the flies which might land on your food after eating poo. You don’t have to be scared of spiders and chase them from your home – spiders are your friends. Hypnotherapy can help with irrational fears and phobias of all kinds in both adults and children.

2. Stuttering Wastes A Lot Of Time. It’s even difficult for a stutterer to say ‘stutter’, which just can’t be fair. Hypnotherapy can help the afflicted find a way around the stuttering and thereby improving confidence which perpetuates a further improvement of the condition.

3. The Extra Weight Is Hard To Lug About Isn’t It? Now be honest, there is a much healthier, thin person under all the blubber who craves far less and who could be uncovered with the help of weight loss hypnotherapy to change eating behaviours . Approaching food and it’s consumption in a different way is better than crash dieting, which doesn’t work anyway; better than gastric bands, which can be painful and lead to digestive problems.

4. Bed-Wetting Is, Like, Soooo First Decade. Actually, you should have stopped this before even reaching your first half-decade. If you have not by then, your parents should be sick of changing wet sheets, as you must have had enough of the crackle of the plastic sheet, so ask them to check out something like The Therapy Lounge hypnotherapy where therapists are used to dealing with wee ones (sorry).

5. Anger Management Is Only Funny In A Film With A Shouty, Sweary American Comedian. Otherwise get a lid on it, keep your cool. Learn techniques through hypnotherapy to control and reroute your anger into more positive feelings.

6. Compulsive Shopping Can Ruin Relationships. Particularly if you have a stingy other half who doesn’t like you spending your own money either. You can’t buy happiness so you can’t keep shopping to find it that way. Hypnotherapy can help you change your behaviour so that you can resist the shops and the internet which has made it all too easy to flex the plastic and spend online.

7. Gloria Gaynor Might Not Be Enough To Make You Believe You Will Survive. Divorce is a very tough process and has a prolonged recovery time. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Neuro Linguistic Programming, as well as traditional hypnotherapy, could help you overcome the negative emotions that could be overwhelming you, and eventually have you humming along to Gloria with a spring in your step.

April 29, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons You Run Out Of Money Every Month

It’s getting harder to save money for your future with the euro being inflated every year. However, there are some things that are completely within your control. Before you complain about how expensive everything seems to be getting these days, check your ego at the door and make sure you’re not committing these seven deadly spending sins.

1. You’re Shopping Way Too Much. Shopping is fun. Heck, what girl doesn’t like a new dress or pair of shoes? Shopping sprees aren’t just a female problem either. Men can get carried away on designer stuff too. If you have a shopping addiction, try putting away the credit card for a few days. If you still think you need a new pair of pants or a shirt, then consider visiting a charity shop – especially if you’re hooked on ModCloth.com offerings. You might be able to find some nice vintage stuff for much less than what you’ll pay retail.

2. You Drink So Much Coffee, Your Blood Is Now At Least 50 Percent Caffeine. Coffee can be addictive, and Starbucks is a pretty popular place, but there’s no need to go there three times a day. Even once a day gets expensive. If you need your coffee fix in the morning consider getting a pour over kit. The initial cost of manual pour over equipment pales in comparison to what it will save you over time. If you spend £2.60 every day on coffee, you will benefit from getting manual pour over equipment. In one month you’ll spend enough on Starbucks to buy yourself a decent filtercone holder, some nice filters, and some decent coffee. Two month’s worth of coffee will get you an excellent coffee grinder.

The benefit? The learning curve is not very steep, it takes just as long to stand in line as it does to make your own coffee at home, and a manual pour over results in a stronger and better cup of coffee than what most retail places will sell you.

3. Those Late Night ATM Runs – You Know The Ones. Are you a night owl? Do you spend a lot of time at clubs, pubs, and after-hours parties? Going to the ATM to reload your wallet with cash takes its toll. There’s no easy solution to this problem other than taking it easy on the partying. Staying home and reading a book might not sound like much fun, but your bank account will thank you.

4. You Are Paying For More Channels Than You Can Possibly Watch. There’s nothing wrong with having cable T.V. In fact, it might add to your life in some way. However, there comes a point when enough is enough. If you’re paying for so many channels that you can never possibly watch all of them, it may be time to rethink your service plan. If you ever find yourself turning on your T.V. and thinking “oh wow, I didn’t even know I had this channel,” then it might be time to consider going with a cheaper package or perhaps cutting your cable down to the bare minimum.

5. You Eat Out So Often, You Haven’t Seen The Inside Of Your Fridge In Three Weeks. Eating out once in a while is fun. You don’t have to do the dishes, and you can usually get something that you find difficult or impossible to prepare yourself at home. However, if you’ve forgotten what the inside of your refrigerator looks like, or if the food in there has started to look more like a science experiment than leftovers because of all of the mold, then consider making more meals at home. Staying in has a wonderful positive effect on your bank account.

6. You Spend More Time On Your Hobbies Than You Do Working At Your Paying Job. Having hobbies allows you to stay active when you’re not working. However, when you spend more time on your hobbies than you do working at your “day job,” there’s something wrong. Maybe you should make your hobby your new job (by starting a business oriented around it) or find a new job that allows you to earn money from doing whatever it is you really love doing.

7. The Only Time You Step Foot On A Sidewalk Is To Get To Your Car. Automobiles allow us to get where we want to go faster than we ever could by walking. However, there’s a benefit to walking: it’s cheaper and allows us to get exercise. Consider walking or biking to work, if you live close enough.

Guest post written by Elizabeth Goldman and brought to you by Wonga – the short term loan experts.

March 28, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Christmas Should Happen In June

We are sure many of you remember with great fondness our attempts at rebranding the 24th December as ‘The Day Of The Sausage’. Sadly – and wrongly – the idea never captured the imagine of the masses. As such we have long been looking for a new festive-based campaign to get behind. And we may have found it in today’s guest post. Over to Sam.

***

I’ve had enough of Christmas in December and reckon it’d be far more fun if it were to occur in June. Here are seven reasons why!

1. Christmas Shopping Would Be Fun. I don’t, as a rule, dislike buying my family and friends Christmas gifts. However, I do dislike turning out onto busy, dark, weather-battered streets in search of the perfect pressie. The ensuing festive scrum is just unpleasant. Admittedly moving the event to June wouldn’t lessen the crowds, but I have a theory. Defending oneself from the elements with sweaters, jumpers, coats, scarfs and the rest increases ones size. I, for a while, owned an anorak that was large enough to warrant its own seat on the underground. If Christmas happened in June this wouldn’t be an issue, t-shirts, vest tops, shorts and skirts would give us room to breathe. And it is also worth mentioning it would negate the instant sauna effect every time you enter a store that occurs with our current date arrangement. Imagine the possibilities. It’d be a merry stroll on sunny streets and, when you were done, an ice cream in the park.

2. Online Christmas Shopping Would Be Less Fraught With Potential Pitfalls. I’ve not finished with Christmas shopping yet. A counter to point one would be the suggestion that the modern Christmas shopper notices that it’s December 1st and promptly makes a cup of coffee and a cheese toasty, before sitting down at their computer and surfing straight to various gift themed websites. A click here and a click there and your Crimbo shopping is done quicker than you can say, “I am a gift giving god!” And you are – as long as there is no adverse weather forecast. It’s December though, and adverse weather is what December really likes to do. Cue impenetrable blizzards and M5 stranded delivery drivers eating that hamper of chocolates you ordered.

3. Santa Would Become A Positive Role Model. Currently Santa is a heart attack waiting to happen. In a world of health awareness holding this fellow aloft as the most important person in a young person’s life alongside Pikachu is surely a bad idea. Christmas in summer would see Santa trim in no time. He’d sweat off those extra 200 pounds he’s carrying in a couple of years, especially having to scoot around the world in half the usual time due to shorter nights.

4. Cold Weather Is Rubbish! Having already mentioned the weather in points 1 and 2 does not negate the requirement for an entry on its own merit. Cold weather is miserable. Plus it’s not just the cold; it’s the sideways rain and hip-breaking conditions underfoot. Historically, aside from the Jesus’ birthday deal, it is reckoned the celebration took place in sync with the winter solstice to lift spirits because everyone was miserable due to the short days, crappy weather and that there was little agricultural work to be done. Sensible? Maybe, but sensible never went hand-in-hand with a cracking celebration. Let’s go outside and party like it’s Christmas in June and pushing 100 Fahrenheit. Oh hang on, it is!

5. No More Mulled Wine. “Hot wine?! No thanks, you’re mad.” This is the correct response when someone offers you mulled wine, except if it is Christmas when you smile and swallow it down as if hot wine if the norm. It isn’t, but seemingly it is only brought out due to the fact it’s December and we’re all freezing. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather sit outside in June’s summer sun and celebrate my Christmas by reaching in to a bucket of ice for a chilled beer.

6. I Wouldn’t Get Combined Birthday And Christmas Presents. I’m not an ungrateful sort, but for the best part of quarter of a century I’ve been the receiver of combined Christmas and birthday presents due to my parents bad planning. Yes, I have an early January birthday. Switching to June would give all those suffering the same fate a taste of two awesome gift receiving occasions that are nicely spaced throughout the year.

7. Why Not? Why not indeed? I can’t think of a reason. And as they say, a change is as good as rest. Besides when we switch we’ll be getting two Christmas celebrations within 12 months, how cool is that?! It’ll boost the economy and raise public moral. I know I’ve criticised certain elements of the December-based festivity, but it is the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, are there any negatives to just adding another Christmas in June? If we do that every one’s happy. What could be more Christmas spirited than that?!

Sam C campaigns by night for the redistribution of national holidays, whilst by day contributing to the e-commerce site, Find Me A Gift.

March 13, 2012
Guest Post: 7 Reasons Christmas Eve Is Better Than Christmas Day

If you were in the 7 Reasons club this time last year, no doubt you’ll be rushing down to the butchers today to celebrate The Day Of The Sausage. The rest of you, no doubt, will be eagerly awaiting tomorrow. Christmas Day. Arguably the best day of the year. Well, certainly in the top 365 anyway. Here at 7 Reasons we are not adverse to handing out gifts and this year you get yours a day early. It’s a special Christmas post from the undisputed King of Guest Posts, Richard O’Hagan. PS: When he’s not writing rude words in the snow he’s adding to his Memory Blog. Well worth a RSS Feed Subscription.

1. Anticipation. One of the best things about Christmas Eve is that it isn’t Christmas Day. Obviously. This means that it is the day when you reach the height of anticipation about the day to come. You can’t do anything more. The shops are shut and Amazon haven’t been able to piece together a next day delivery service for December 25th*, so you just have to kick back, relax and resign yourself to the fact that you can’t do anything to make Christmas any better, so you just have to look forward to the day to come. And you also get to build large toys whilst drunk. No-one who has ever tried to put together a tricycle at five to midnight ever forgets that experience, no matter how much Baileys they’ve downed beforehand (and no matter how hard they try to)

2. Food Choice. It’s only Christmas Eve, so you can eat what you damn well like. The mandatory turkey-fest is another day away and all dining options remain open to you. Which means that if you fancy getting a huge takeaway so that you can have the leftovers for breakfast on Christmas morning, you can do. Or you could have sausages.

3. TV. For all of the build up that the television companies give to the 25th, Christmas Eve television is infinitely better than Christmas Day’s offering. Aside from anything else, it tends not to be clogged up with octogenarians reading you their Christmas letter and Channel 4 trying far too hard to be trendy, not to mention the tired old sitcoms that weren’t that funny anyway being even less funny as they try to shoehorn a festive storyline into their archaic format.

4. Shopping. The shops being closed on Christmas Day isn’t a bad thing in general, but at least on Christmas Eve you can pop to Sainsbury’s if you run out of milk or, heaven forbid, booze.

5. Work. Admittedly this doesn’t apply to so many people this year, but over seventy percent of the time Christmas Eve is a work day. It is a great day to go to work for most, because almost nothing gets done, you get to go home early and someone pays you for working the full day. And if you do have to work properly, you get to feel all virtuous and Christmassy anyway because you are the only people working properly, so it is a win-win whichever way you look at it.

6. Lie-Ins. Whether you are working or not, you can be sure of one thing – you will get to sleep in longer on Christmas Eve than you will on Christmas Day. If you have small children, they will be up and wanting to open presents practically as soon as the clock passes midnight. If you have older children, you’re probably going to be woken up by your grandchildren instead. If you have no children, your partner will get over-excited and still wake you up early. And if you live alone, don’t worry, there will be a child wailing somewhere long before 7am to rouse you from your slumber. Get all the sleep you can on the 24th, because the 25th is going to hurt. Which is why you should make sure that you don’t run out of booze on the 24th.

7. Disappointment. Inevitably, Christmas Day cannot live up to all of the expectations. We build it up to be the perfect day of all days, so something has to go wrong – the turkey taking too long to cook, the neighbours calling in unexpectedly, Santa not bringing you the moon on a stick that you asked for. Christmas Day cannot help but be a disappointment. Christmas Eve never is, because at the end of it a fat bloke is going to give you a load of presents. And nothing is better than free presents, is it?

*In truth, they’ve not really worked out a delivery service for most of December, preferring the ‘give it to Yodel or City Link and hope the customer forgets ever ordering it’ option. One the things I ordered is presumably still in a locked empty flat where Yodel apparently delivered it a fortnight ago.

December 24, 2011
7 Reasons Not To Get Stuck In A Revolving Door

We’re in a revolving door. Mid-revolution. But we’re not going anywhere. We are, as the saying goes, stuck. There are eight of us in total. Myself, another man and a woman in our half and a family of five in the other. We’re all looking at each other. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.

1. Suspicion. Everyone is looking at me. I am the prime suspect here. Just because I am very close to the glass in front of me. Everyone thinks I touched it. Everyone thinks I stopped the revolving doors. I didn’t. I promise you I didn’t. I’ve had years of practice in these things. I know how to use them. I did not touch the glass. I did not. I try and make every sinew in my face as innocent as possible. But it doesn’t work. Everyone still thinks it was me.

2. Blush. And because everyone thinks it was me and because everyone is staring at me, the colour races to my cheeks. I go a little red. Well, probably quite a lot red. Every sinew now suggests I am guilty. A bead of sweat trickles down my arm.

3. Backwards Step. I want to hold my ground. I want to prove that it is not my proximity to the glass that has made the doors stop. But we’re not going anywhere. And every split-second that passes feels like a minute. There’s also another problem. I’m in a rush here. I really need to get to the gents. Suddenly my nerve is entangled in a battle of wills with my bladder.

4. Realisation. This is pain. This is physical and mental torture. And the only outcome is that I lose. Either I move, which just gives my revolving door companions even more reason to suspect I am the culprit, or I just stand there. And wet myself.

5. Decision. It’s not a hard one.* I move. It’s only a small step, but the significance of it is staggering. If I can paraphrase Neil Armstrong here, ‘It was one small step for Jon, a giant leap for the revolving door’s inhabitants.’. To everyone else this appeared as an admission of guilt. But deep down I don’t really care. Not now. I’ve come too far. And, like I say, I really, really need to get to the gents.

6. Handbags. No sooner have I stepped back though, that I encounter another problem. A lady’s foot. Just the toes, but enough to make her exasperate. I’m not doing very well here. I turn my head and apologise. She smiles wryly though I suspect it belies a wish for vengeance. For a second I am pleased I am stuck in a revolving door. There isn’t enough room to swing a cat in here, let alone her handbag.

7. Release. After what seems like hours – but in reality is probably less than five seconds – we are finally free. I make a sharp left for the toilets. I don’t look back. I just want to forget the whole sordid affair. I make it to the urinals without further alarm. But then someone stands next to me. And out of the corner of my eye I can tell who it is. It’s the man who was holding the hand of the woman who now has a bruised toe. Has he followed me in? I lose my nerve. I can’t bring myself to go. So I pretend to go. I count to ten before heading for the sink. And then I head out, to tackle the revolving doors once more. Only I use the normal door instead. Because the revolving doors are stuck.

*Which only goes to prove even more that I wasn’t touching the glass in front.

July 11, 2011
7 Reasons I Won’t Be Using The Self-Checkout Machines At My Local Supermarket

I’m not totally against self-checkout machines or progress, but the ones at my local supermarket have turned shopping into a living hell*. Here’s why I won’t be using them.

1. They’re Confusing. Now I’m not a man easily confused by technology. I can put together websites that almost work and look good; I can write HTML and CSS code and I can do things to the inside of PCs too. And given that the self-checkout systems are supposed to be a user-friendly interface that are accessible to people with little tech-savvy or confidence, you might expect that I’d be able to use them easily. But they’re bewildering. Not in and of themselves, but because they are located in a packed group of self-checkouts in a very small space going through different stages of the transaction but bellowing instructions at their customer in the same identical voice. “Please scan your first item”. Wait, what! I’m on my third. “Please replace the item in the bagging area”. What! I haven’t removed the item from the bagging area. “Please wait for assistance.” Assistance? To scan a jar of cloves? How daft do I look? Having a row of three machines with only one voice is idiotic. It’s like having a third member of Jedward.

2. Buying Alcohol Becomes Difficult. Occasionally** I like to buy some beer or wine. This is not a straightforward purchase at the self-checkout because a light suddenly flashes above your machine (sadly no klaxon) and a member of staff has to come over to approve your purchase. I have no problem with that whatsoever (except that I haven’t been asked for ID for about two years now); I hold a personal licence to sell alcohol myself. I have a problem with the amount of time it wastes when I’m shopping in a small store. Both mine, and that of the person who has to verify that I’m over eighteen. Because at my local shop…

3. When You Need Assistance Everything Comes To A Halt. In my local supermarket, no matter how busy it gets, the staff working at the manned tills are the ones that have to come over to verify age, remove security tags or deal with the halfwit that’s wondering where the barcode is on a lime, at the self-checkout. They have to abandon their tills – once they’ve finished dealing with their current customer – leaving you waiting for them to do that, and while they’re dealing with you, there’s a queue of people waiting for the staff member to come back to deal with them. This annoys everyone. This means that far from being an efficient system that eases the burden on the staff, they end up spending much of their time travelling between the checkout and the self-checkout and when they are dealing with customers, those customers are ill-tempered. Essentially their working lives are spent rushing around placating a mob. They aren’t even equipped with truncheons or tall hats.

4. The Machine Tells You Off If You Move Anything. This is annoying at any self-checkout but, when added to the other frustrations in a small store it becomes infuriating. The bagging area is tiny and the chances are that you’re probably buying more than one thing. But if – during your game of bagging area jenga – you move anything in the bagging area, the checkout (or possibly the one next to it, who knows?) bellows at you to replace it. I don’t go to a supermarket to play a game in which I am forced to balance an assortment of dissonantly shaped objects on a small space while being bellowed at by a robot. If I wanted to play that game, I’d go to a Japanese television studio.

5. The Machine Is Patronising. Once all the “fun” is over and you’ve paid for everything you were able to balance successfully in the bagging area and you’ve received your receipt (and twelve others), you start taking your items. And, at some point while you’re doing that, the machine will bellow “please take your items” at you. But you don’t need to be asked to do this because firstly, you’re already doing it and secondly – unless you’ve been kidnapped by a band of Gododdin tribesman and held prisoner for the past 1500 years or so – you’ll be aware of how the concept of a shopping transaction works and you’ll already know that once you’ve paid for your items you should take them with you. And that’s probably when you’ll snap.

6. Other Shoppers Will Look At You Strangely When You Argue With It. “I know! I bloody know! Of course I’m going to take my sodding items you authoritarian automaton! That’s what I came here for! I didn’t come here to give you money and then just leave my goods, that would be cretinous! I wholly understand that if I leave this lime here with you then when I get home there will be no lime in my gin and tonic. I get that! I want the lime!” It’s much like the modern tradition of arguing with the sat-nav in the car, except that in the car there isn’t a line of slack-jawed people backing away from you and shielding their children from Disproportionately-Angry-Man. Or if there is, you’re a bus driver.

7. Human interaction. I just like people. I want to deal with a person: Not an exhausted, defensive person whose shift has been spent in the service of an infernal machine and in placating the bewildered, the angry and the truculent but a person that is relaxed and at ease in their environs and with their customers. But I can’t because of the machines. I miss the happy people that the self-checkout machines have turned into the dejected and the unsmiling. After all, if I wanted to be scowled at and resented I could just stay at home.

*Okay, an unpleasant experience.

**On almost every occasion.

June 6, 2011
Two Posts On A Friday?! What’s Going On?!

My Lords, Ladies, gentlemen and uncategorised people that aren’t covered in the first three, prepare to be astonished! Prepare to be amazed! Prepare to gaze upon something new in wonderment and with awe! We have something to announce and it’s big news. Here we go.

When we opened the 7 Reasons Emporium, we got all the products designed and ready and then we realised that we had nowhere to sell them and the shop got put together as a bit of an afterthought. We tried to make it work as a part of our website’s theme (and failed) so we had to build a new site for it and we modified an existing theme to make it work. Neither of the team were thrilled with the look or functionality of this theme and, as people that pride themselves on their eye(s) for design and general web savviness, that hurt.

We realised that we had to redesign the Emporium for the sake of our own self-respect. It got to the stage that we didn’t like to look at even. We weren’t sure when we were going to be able to fit a redesign in (we’ve only just redone the main website) but then one of the team (we won’t mention which one) had a brilliant idea. “Jon”, he said, “I’ve found the time to redesign our emporium. I’ve calculated that we waste at least six hours every day just lying in the dark*. Let’s use those wasted hours to set up a new site and build a new emporium.” So that’s what we’ve been doing for the last ten days or so.

Now, the 7 Reasons Emporium 2.0 is here. It’s new, it’s shiny, it’s got stuff that moves, it looks absolutely bloody lovely and it’s got giant lemons. We’re so happy with it that we grin like idiots whenever we look at it and feel dizzy whenever we stand up**. We’d like to encourage you to visit it, to click on things and to generally gaze at it (and buy stuff). We’re even offering 10% off the price of all t-shirts this weekend to celebrate the relaunch. We’d love to hear your feedback and product ideas, which can be directed to this email address. We hope you enjoy the new emporium,

Marc and Jon.

*Separately.

**That may be fatigue.***

***Or gin.

June 3, 2011